Ferguson / Staten Island Decisions -- No Indictments

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Dude needs to learn to spell potato first.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

The Ferguson police force has a long and documented history of racism and brutality, and the prosecuting attorney has a long and documented history of throwing cases for his cop buddies.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Even if they admit it, they might be lying. We don't *know* anything.

In a country where everyone develops some degree of racism due to cultural infuences beyond their control, in an area where the people are mostly black but the people in power are mostly white and that has caused tensions for decades, in an area where police departments have had to be disbanded for systemic racism only to be reformed with mostly the same cops, in a police department where four cops beat a black man and charged him with bleeding on them, we're supposed to believe that it's possible that Darren Wilson's interaction with Michael Brown on that day was not in any way influenced by race, despite his attribution of superhuman abilities to Brown in the incident (and we *do* have statistical evidence that shows that part of our cultural racism is that we tend to believe young black men have those types of superhuman abilities.)

It's "possible" only in the deepest, most philosophical sense of "it's possible that we're all hooked up the the Matrix and nothing we see is real."

Beyond that, it's completely impossible.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

The people who see racism in every facet of life have never before been told to support their claims with evidence. Why should they start now?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Sorry Rick, but you are desperately reaching in all directions for support to a claim you cannot support. Is it possible that race was a factor in Wilson's actions? Absolutely. Is it definite? No, based on the evidence we have, it is not.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Maybe if they weren't doing things wrong, police wouldn't have such itchy trigger fingers?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Once again, you are saying you have evidence against one man, then citing the actions of others. That isn't evidence. That is, at best, educated guesswork.

And that second part about the prosecutor? That doesn't even address the question of racism. Actually, it supports my argument that by trying so hard to attach racial motivation to this, we are distracting some folks from the issue of potential misconduct in the legal system, which does not always involve race. Maybe the issue here was protecting the police officer regardless of race. Or perhaps it was protecting him because the accusations of racism were making people look bad.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

The family of Akai Gurley might disagree.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

In 1970, Ferguson was 99% white; In 1980 it was 85% white and 14% black; in 1990 it was 74% white and 25% black. It is now 67% black and 29% white. I guess that "long and documented history of racism and brutality" served as a drawing card to attract a lot of blacks.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

No, that would be the institutionalized racism that drew whites to the suburbs while barring blacks from moving there. It's a lot like where you live, with the same self-satisfied outlook from people who have convinced themselves that they and their neighbors are just better than the blacks who could never find their way out of the city.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Wilson thought that Brown had a face like a demon. He thought that Brown was so strong as to make himself "like a 5-year-old." He thought that Brown could run straight through gun fire for 10 feet despite having been hit multiple times already by "bulking up" and calling on some sort of animal cry. He insists that Brown was "reaching into his waistband" to imply that he was reaching for a gun, when Brown of course had no gun and had no reason to reach into his waistband.

These are all the recollections of a man who, undoubtedly and provably through his own words, was under the influence of the cultural myth of superhuman black thug.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

And don't forget the "grunting noises", just another way his absurd testimony seemed to be trying to convey imagery of someone more beast than human.